A Franklin County Republican running for Congress has accepted the endorsement of a founding member of a white supremacist think tank, county GOP Chairman Dwight Weidman said.

Art Halvorson, who along with Travis Schooley is challenging incumbent Bill Shuster for the GOP nod in the 9th Congressional House District in the May 20 primary, has been endorsed by James B. Taylor.

Taylor is a former board member and vice president of the National Policy Institute, which the Southern Poverty Law Center labels a leader in the world of “academic racism.” Taylor also is a former chairman of the Franklin County GOP.

Founded in 2005 in McLean, Va., the NPI describes itself as “an independent think tank and publishing firm dedicated to the heritage, identity and future of European people in the United States and around the world.”

Halvorson included the news of Taylor’s endorsement in the last line of a news release issued to announce a separate endorsement from Chambersburg Mayor Darren Brown last month.

Halvorson’s camp, who claims Weidman is raising the issue to support Shuster’s campaign, said Taylor no longer is affiliated with the NPI. The organization’s executive director, Richard Spencer, confirmed that Taylor is not a member.

The Franklin County GOP doesn't endorse candidates in primary elections.

And Weidman said he isn’t playing politics; he’s interested in transparency.

“It concerns me because it goes to the judgment of someone like Halvorson. I warned him that it doesn’t show good judgment to take an endorsement from someone with such extreme views,” Weidman said. “If he didn’t know, it would be one thing. But he was warned.”

Halvorson’s office condemned racism in a statement it released to PennLive. Halvorson would never knowingly associate with any person or group who believes such beliefs are acceptable, his camp said, adding: “The Shuster campaign is trying to rehash this old story for purely political purposes to discredit a surging Halvorson campaign right before the primary on May 20.”

In a 2012 interview with the Chambersburg Public Opinion, when Taylor was a write-in candidate looking to represent Franklin County in the state Senate, he said he hadn’t been involved with the NPI for years and that “I wouldn’t be involved now considering what they have on the website now.”

Neither Shuster nor his campaign manager responded to interview requests. Taylor did not return interview requests over several days.

Spencer called the statement disingenuous.

It’s true that Taylor is no longer a member of the NPI, Spencer said. But the organization is no different today than it was when it was founded in 2005, when Taylor was a member of the Board of Directors, said Spencer, who noted that he never met Taylor or spoke with him.

“The idea that [NPI] has diverted from its mission is ridiculous," Spencer said. "If [Taylor] didn’t know what this organization was about, then he is one of the most absurdly naive individuals on the face of this earth."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, recognized nationally for exposing and fighting hate groups, compared the NPI to the Ku Klux Klan.

Law center senior fellow David Potok said the NPI defends the same ideas as the Klan: America is a white man’s country, and multiculturalism is an attack on white people.

“They want the country to be a fundamentally white country,” Potok said. “This is in effect the suit-and-tie Klan.”

Spencer, along with Halvorson's camp, said the law center isn't a credible source.

The NPI believes that western civilization is birthed by a white family and that white people have a biological connection to each other that are more important than ethnic and religious differences.

"It's not to say that those [differences] aren't important. We do feel that there is an identity of [Western] people that stretches beyond religion and historical differences that arose. That is one of our guiding principal," said Spencer, who conducts NPI work from Whitefish, Mont., even though the group's base is still considered to be in Virginia. "Every person [deserves] an identity. We are interested in our identity as white people. We are just like any other think tank. But we have a fundamental principal that is taboo in our rather unfree society."

Taylor also has been tied to another group which the law center identifies as a leader academic racism.

Taylor runs America’s PAC and was its executive director in 2004, when the PAC donated $5,000 to the Charles Martel Society, according to The Public Opinion.

The society, similar to the NPI, was founded in 2001 by publisher William H. Regenery. Regenery also is a co-founder of the NPI, according to the law center.

Taylor told the Public Opinion he thought the Charles Martel Society was too militant, and if he gave it a donation, then it was to establish the NPI.

Accepting an endorsement from someone who makes these type of statements is bad form, Weidman said.

Halvorson isn't a bad guy, and in politics, candidates tend to take support from wherever they can, Weidman said. But they also have to draw the line, he said.

Weidman suggested Halvorson should admit that accepting Taylor’s endorsement was a mistake.

“We need to try to come together more and not split ourselves one way or another. I know Art, and as county chairman I want to keep things clean and good in these races,” Weidman said. “[Halvorson] is not a bad guy, but I do think he has had a serious lapse in judgment.”

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